---
record_id: HP-HTFOL-DEJING-RULES
classification: De Jing FOL Profile Rules
work: De Jing
status: prototype
scope: Adaptor House governance profile for De Jing formalization
inherits: HP-HTFOL-MASTER
---

# De Jing FOL Rules

The De Jing FOL layer should be thorough without becoming forceful. Its job is to preserve distinctions, not to collapse the text into a single preferred reading.

Master rules: `historical-text-fol-master.md`.

Historical Present implementation pilot: `https://historicalpresent.com/shared/dejing-commentary/de-01-ddj-38-line-001.html`.

Namespace: use `dejing`, not `dj`, because `dj` collides with both De Jing and Dao Jing.

## Witness Layers

Keep these objects distinct:

```text
EnglishLine(el)
EnglishSyntax(ex)
EnglishSegment(es)
ChineseLine(cl)
ChineseSegment(cs)
ChineseSyntaxModern(csm)
ChineseSyntaxArchaic(csa)
```

## Rules

1. Formal claims attach to the sentence or semantic unit, not to the translation.
2. Translation lines are witnesses. They may render, split, condense, or expand a sentence, but they are not the sentence claim itself.
3. Chinese line, Chinese segment, modern Chinese syntax, and archaic Chinese syntax are separate formal objects.
4. English line, English segment, and English syntax are separate formal objects.
5. Modifiers should remain visible as predicates where possible. Prefer `Virtue(x) ∧ Highest(x)` over a compound highest-virtue predicate.
6. Logical operators should remain logical operators. Do not turn therefore, because, not, and, or if into predicate strings unless rhetorical force is explicitly being modeled.
7. Use the weakest claim that preserves the distinction the sentence requires.
8. Mark unresolved or interpretive alignments as provisional instead of hiding uncertainty inside confident predicate names.
9. Every formal claim must declare quantifier scope explicitly.
10. Every formal claim must provide a proof sketch or mark itself as unproved.
11. A sentence may license a conditional as an interpretive premise, but that license must be visible in the proof rather than smuggled into a predicate name.